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Marinho, Luísa
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Albanese, John
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To assess the validity of self-reported height and weight by comparison with measured height and weight in a sample of middle-aged men and women, and to determine the extent of misclassification of body mass index (BMI) arising from differences between self-reported and measured values.

Design:

Analysis of self-reported and measured height and weight data from participants in the Oxford cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC–Oxford).

Subjects:

Four thousand eight hundred and eight British men and women aged 35–76 years.

Results:

Spearman rank correlations between self-reported and measured height, weight and BMI were high ( r <0.9, P >0.0001 ). Height was overestimated by a mean of 1.23 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.11–1.34) cm in men and 0.60 (0.51–0.70) cm in women; the extent of overestimation was greater in older men and women, shorter men and heavier women. Weight was underestimated by a mean of 1.85 (1.72–1.99) kg in men and 1.40 (1.31–1.49) kg in women; the extent of underestimation was greater in heavier men and women, but did not vary with age or height. Using standard categories of BMI, 22.4% of men and 18.0% of women were classified incorrectly based on self-reported height and weight. After correcting the self-reported values using predictive equations derived from a 10% sample of subjects, misclassification decreased to 15.2% in men and 13.8% in women.

Conclusions:

Self-reported height and weight data are valid for identifying relationships in epidemiological studies. In analyses where anthropometric factors are the primary variables of interest, measurements in a representative sample of the study population can be used to improve the accuracy of estimates of height, weight and BMI.

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Validity of self-reported height and weight in 4808 EPIC–Oxford participants

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Validity of self-reported height and weight in 4808 EPIC–Oxford participants

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12SZiebland, MThorogood, AFuller, JMuir. Desire for the body normal: body image and discrepancies between self reported and measured height and weight in a British population. J Epidemiol. Community Health1996; 50(1): 105–6.